Covid Northern Ireland: Dashboard shows fall in infection rate in some areas

Sunday’s Department of Health Covid ‘dashboard’ revealed a downward turn in a number of figures.

Statistics published on Friday for the daily change in positive cases - from midnight Wednesday to midnight Thursday - showed 258 in the Derry City and Strabane Council area. Today’s figure - for the daily change from midnight Friday to midnight Saturday - showed 125 positives.

Belfast showed a less striking reduction, with 285 reported today compared with 315 on Friday. In Newry Mourne and Down, with the next highest daily change figure on Sunday, there were 93 positives. In contrast with Belfast and Derry, On Friday the figure was higher, if marginally, at 99 positives.

In Antrim and Newtownabbey, however, the daily change reported today was 85 compared to 65 on Friday while in Armagh City Banbridge and Craigavon there was a change of 84 compared to 100 on Friday.

Overall, though, the numbers remained high with 1,012 positives reported and a total of the last seven days of 7,090 positive tests.

In terms of rate of infection, measured by positive tests per 100,000 population, the postcode with the highest is BT48 with 821.7, according to the localised breakdown in the dashboard. BT76 has a rate of 591.1, according to the figures, while there is a rate of 559 in BT80. BT11 has a rate of 546.8, according to the figures. BT93 has the lowest rate of all the postcodes with 26.6 positives per 100,000.

A rising number of Covid patients, but falling again recently (Department of Health)

The 20-39 age group remains the one with the highest rate of infections, with 2,812 positives in the seven days from October 11-17. Only 238 in the 80 and above age group were tested positive in that time.

One graph in the dashboard shows that the current number of Covid patients across all health trusts stands at 228, compared to the peak of the first wave when it was 322. The 228 figure, however, has fallen back from a figure of 242 recorded several days ago.

Today’s figures also show that there are currently 30 Covid patients in ICU with 23 ventilated. There are also 72 Covid ‘outbreaks’, defined as two or more cases in a facility, in care homes.